The Iowa State women play sixth seeded Michigan Friday morning in the NCAA Tournament in South Bend. The Cyclones advanced with a Wednesday night win over Princeton in the First Four and coach Bill Fennelly says the Wolverines pose a unique challenge.

The Wolverines are 22-10 and finished in a tie for fifth in the Big Ten.

The Cyclones will have a size advantage with sophomore center Audi Crooks but Fennelly says Michigan’s five guard lineup creates defensive concerns.

Iowa State guard Emily Ryan on the challenge Michigan will provide.

Iowa State guard Tamin Lipsey is expected to play on Friday when the Cyclones open the NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee against Lipscomb. Lipsey missed last week’s loss to BYU in the Big 12 Tournament with a groin injury.

That’s Cyclone coach T.J. Otzelberger who says Lipsey returned to practice on Wednesday.

While Lipsey is expected to return senior guard Keshon Gilbert is done for the rest of the way. He is second on the team in scoring at nearly 13 and-a-half points per game and Otzelberger says it will be up to the entire team to pick up the slack.

Lipsey says he has spent the last week rehabbing.

Lipsey expects to be able to play and be effective.

Leading scorer Curtis Jones on moving on without Gilbert.

The Cyclones are the three seed in region and are 24-9.

Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff says the Bisons will need to handle Iowa State’s pressure defense if they hope to post an upset on Friday in Milwaukee. Lipscomb is 25-9 and won the Atlantic Sun Conference regular season and tournament titles.

Acuff says the Bisons need to survive the opening few minutes of the game.

Six-eight forward Jacob Ognacevic is Lipscomb’s leading scorer at just over 20 points per game. He is also a native of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

He says they will need a big effort against the Cyclones.

SMU used a 10-3 run to end the game and pulled away for a 73-63 win over Northern Iowa Wednesday night in the first round of the Men’s National Invitation Tournament.

The Panthers trailed 63-60 at the final TV timeout but went cold down the stretch.

Trey Campbell had 16 points and 6 rebounds and Tytan Anderson added 14 points, 5 boards and 4 assists to lead UNI.

SMU had 4 players in double figures, led by a big night by B. J. Edwards with 16 points, ten rebounds, seven assists and four steals.

The Panthers season ends with a mark of 20-13.

The Griswold Boys Track & Field team are an experienced group with many upperclassmen on this year’s team. 11 seniors and 6 juniors build the 2025 Tigers roster along with eleven sophomores and just two freshmen. Griswold began their season in Ames last week placing tenth at the 2025 IATC Indoor Championships putting up twenty points on the board as a team.

The Tigers will participate in roughly a dozen meets this season and have the privilege of hosting three of those. Griswold hosts the Griswold/Stanton relays on Aprill 3rd, the Griswold COED relays on May 1st and the Corner Conference meet on May 6th.

Griswold’s Shuttle Hurdles relay squad had the strongest finish in Ames last week, as they placed second in a narrow four-tenths of a second finish. The Tiger 3200 medal relay team finished sixth as well and appear to make a strong case for season success early on.

Senior Holden Jensen will the team’s primary distance runner this spring, as Jensen had 11th and 14th places in the one and two mile runs.

Head Coach Andy Everett says with all of the experience on the roster, practice has been running very smooth so far.

The Tigers have their eyes set on getting as many athletes to the Drake Relays as possible.

Track & Field is renowned program at Griswold and the immense history makes it difficult to find your way into the record books, but the Tigers are still trying to get their name on the wall.

Griswold continues their season April 1st at the Bulldog Relays at Bedford.

The Iowa State women roared back from a 15 point third quarter deficit to beat Princeton 68-63 in the NCAA First Four in South Bend. The Cyclones outscored the Tigers 27-9 in the third quarter to improve to 23-11.

That’s sophomore center Audi Crooks who led the way with 27 points. It was career win number 800 for Cyclone coach Bill Fennelly.

Fennelly celebrated the milestone after the game with his team and family.

The Cyclones advance to play sixth seeded Michigan Friday morning. Tip time for the game has been set for 10:30, Iowa time.

Missouri takes the sixth seed in the West Region into Thursday night’s NCAA Tournament opener in Wichita against 11th seeded Drake. Dennis Gates has led the Tigers back to the big dance a year after that finished 0-18 in the SEC.

Drake wants to control the pace while the Tigers want to make it a high school affair.

Gates says contrasting styles are an interesting part of tournament play. The Tigers are averaging 84 and-a-half-points per game while the Bulldogs yield less than 59 per contest.

Gates on trying to slow down Drake point guard Bennett Stirtz, who averages more than 19 points and six assists per game.

It will be a homecoming for Mizzou guard Caleb Grill who is a native of Wichita.

Tiger senior guard Tamar Bates says pushing the tempo begins on the defensive end.

Bates hopes the Tiger depth is an advantage in the game.

Junior forward Mark Mitchell was asked about Missouri’s size advantage.

Missouri is 22-11. Drake is 30-3.

Drake plays Missouri Thursday night in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Wichita. After a successful run at Northwest Missouri State Ben McCollum has led Drake to a 30-3 record and the 11-seed in the West Region.

It is a game of contrasting styles. Drake is the nation’s top defensive team by giving up less than 59 points per game while Missouri is ninth in scoring at 84 and-a-half points per game. McCollum says the Bulldogs will look to be patient on offense.

McCollum says it is difficult to prepare for the variety of defenses the Tigers will throw at them.

Drake has played one other SEC team and beat Vanderbilt at a tournament in Charleston, South Carolina.

McCollum says he is focused on this team despite rumors about his future. His named has been linked to several openings, including the recent one at Iowa.

Junior guard Bennett Stirtz followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State to Drake and led the Bulldog’s to the Missouri Valley regular season and tournament titles in being named the Valley Player of the Year.

Stirtz says the Bulldogs want the game played at their pace.

Senior forward Mitch Mascari  says the Bulldogs have overcome a size disadvantage all season and they will need to do so again.

Mascari also began his career at Northwest Missouri State.

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Junior Tereza Dejnozkova has been named the Co-Big Ten Tennis Player of the Week, it was announced Wednesday by the league office.  It is Dejnozkova’s first career honor.

She shares the honor with Michigan’s Julia Fliegner.

The Prague, Czech Republic, native earned the distinction after posting a 4-0 combined singles and doubles record last weekend in road victories over No. 46 Illinois (4-1) and No. 38 Northwestern (4-3).

She opened the weekend by posting dominating victories against the Illini.  She teamed with Nikita Vishwase in doubles to down Megan Heuser and Kida Ferrari, 6-1, at the No. 1 doubles line.  The followed with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Mckenna Schaefbauer at No. 1 singles.

In the road win in Evanston, Dejnozkova again partnered with Vishwase in doubles in a 6-2 triumph over Erica Jessel and Mika Dagan Fruchtman at the one line.  In singles, Dejnozkova clinched Iowa’s ninth team win, downing Jessel, 7-5, 1-6, 6-2.

Iowa’s victory was its first win over Northwestern since 1992 and it was just the third Hawkeye victory over the Wildcats all-time.

Dejnozkova is the first Hawkeye to earn the accolade this season and the first Big Ten Player of the Week honoree since Marisa Schmidt was honored on March 27 last season.

The Hawkeyes are currently ranked 32nd in the March 18 ITA team rankings.  The No. 32 ranking is the highest for the program in 15 years.

Iowa (9-4, 3-1) returns to Iowa City to host No. 72 Minnesota on Friday on the outdoor courts at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Center at 5 p.m. (CT).

IOWA CITY, Iowa – University of Iowa track and field freshmen Pauline Bikembo and Abraham Vogelsang were named Big Ten Indoor Freshmen of the Year, it was announced Wednesday by the conference.

Bikembo, a native of Saint Lue La Foret, France, is Iowa’s first indoor women’s Big Ten Freshman of the Year since Erica Broomfield claimed the honor in 1998. She is the second Hawkeye woman to win the award in conference history.

In her first year of collegiate competition, Bikembo earned first-team All-American honors after placing fourth in the pentathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a school-record 4,331 points. She was the Big Ten champion in the event with a then-program best of 4,330 points and claimed first-team all-Big Ten honors. Bikembo was Iowa’s first pentathlon conference champion since Tria Simmons in 2019.

Bikembo holds three marks inside Iowa’s top ten list, including the pentathlon school record. She ranks third in the long jump at 6.33 meters and is tied for fourth in the high jump at 1.79 meters.

Vogelsang, a freshman from Oslo, Norway, is the Hawkeyes’ first men’s Big Ten Indoor Freshman of the Year since Jeremy Allen in 1998. It is the third time a Hawkeye has been named the men’s Big Ten Indoor Freshman of the Year in league history.

In his rookie campaign, Vogelsang placed sixth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the heptathlon with 5,810 points. On the Big Ten stage, Vogelsang was the league’s highest-ranked freshman in the heptathlon.

Vogelsang’s 5,882 points at the Dr. Rick McGuire Invite in Columbia, Missouri, on Feb. 1 earned the event title and elevated him to third all-time in school history. Along with his heptathlon point total, Vogelsang enters Iowa’s top ten at third in the pole vault at 5.15 meters.

The Hawkeyes start the outdoor season on Friday at the UCF Black and Gold Invitational in Orlando, Florida.